Rail industry 'must live within means'

Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, has said that there will be no extra Government rail network funding without improvements to services.

As the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) began its campaign to win more money for rail, Mr Darling warned that the industry "needed to live within its means, like any business".

He added that huge investment in the railways could only be justified if performance improved and costs came down. Mr Darling said the industry had to make the case for rail "to the people that matter most, the public".

He added that some operators were still not performing well, and that the railway had to offer people more options "rather than what's convenient to the operator".

Mr Darling was speaking at a London conference entitled Why Rail Is Important at which the SRA launched its Case For Rail that will culminate in the New Year in an official request for more Government funding.

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The SRA said that half of Britons use trains and that big business relies on staff who get to work by train. The authority added that 75 per cent of electricity is generated by rail-borne coal and pointed out that main rail passenger routes will be overloaded within 15 years.

Also today, Peter Field, rail development director at London Rail, a division of Transport for London, said overcrowding on trains into London will reach Third World levels by the year 2011 without investment of billions of pounds in rail services.